


Be Kind, Remember Me Fondly

by Debate



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Cemetery, Flowers, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 14:49:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13033455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Debate/pseuds/Debate
Summary: It's not a happy anniversary, but it is one that Karen and Curtis believe should be remembered and respected.





	Be Kind, Remember Me Fondly

She goes through the entire day with that feeling of having forgotten something. 

It’s uncomfortable, like an itch high in the center of your back that you can’t reach, and it sits with her all day—through her morning meeting with Ellison, and during a phone interview with a suspicious landlord that has numerous complaints tied to his name. It even lasts through her lunch hour, which she takes sitting at her desk. 

It’s only when she’s making small talk with Janet from A&E over the water cooler that she remembers. Or rather, she’s reminded by the TV that plays in the break room on a local news channel. It’s an _On This Day in History_ segment, the volume is muted but she finds herself reading the captions as pictures from the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam flash briefly across the screen. “Today marks the anniversary of a tragedy. On March 16th, 1968...” read the words running across the bottom, and Karen has to turn away from the TV as she suddenly remembers the long nights of sifting through crime scene photos and police reports at the office of Nelson and Murdock, a feeling like muted shock running through her. 

She apologizes hastily to Janet, claiming she left important work at her desk, when she had only been transcribing some notes, and returns to her office. She leaves at 4:30, generally unheard of for her, even though it’s a Friday. 

She stops to buy flowers, a collection of different colored tulips, for no other reason than that she likes them, then she heads to the cemetery. 

She spends some time wandering. Goes to visit Ben, and is tempted to tell him about how well she’s doing at the Bulletin right now. She’s forced to refrain—she’s not going to become someone who speaks to headstones. 

Even if talking to ghosts wouldn’t be anything new. 

She walks to where Matt is buried next. And like the other two times she had come in the past, she thinks about his empty coffin and about that last conversation that they had. The memory of it stings like salt water on an open wound and even among her many regrets her last words to him stand out the sharpest. 

She says a quick prayer, in her mind, something short she remembers from Sunday School. She doesn’t know if Matt would want anyone praying for his soul, but she thinks he probably still needs it. 

It doesn’t take long to find Maria Castle’s grave after that, not when she’d combed through death certificates and funeral records a year and a half ago. It’s another of the Castle family’s tragedies that she’s buried here by herself. Her children are several rows away—because when a husband and wife buy plots next to each other like this, they never think their children might need a spot too—and there’s a stone with Frank’s name on it sitting next to hers, but the ground underneath it will never be occupied. 

Karen sets the flowers down, a tad to the side so all the words etched into the stone are still legible. 

A sudden gust flutters her hair and the flower’s petals, leaving a chill in her bones. It isn’t quite spring yet. 

She lingers even though she doesn’t mean to. She knows Frank won’t come, and she doesn’t know anything about Maria’s family, so she’s here to pay her respects, because if Karen were dead she’d want someone to leave flowers at her grave it the people she loves most in the world can’t. 

“Were you one of Maria’s friends?” 

Karen had heard the footsteps approaching, but hadn’t thought they’d stop and address her. She turns to look at the man beside her. He’s giving her a friendly smile, and she feels herself relax slightly, even though she knows that a smile isn’t indicative of danger having passed. 

“No,” she answers, turning back to the grave, “I never met her.” 

“I did,” the mysterious man says, “Once or twice, she was a nice lady. A good mom.” 

Karen nods with a closed lip smile. 

“I know she was,” she says, not to sound patronizing, but to simply acknowledge a fact. “Part of me wishes I could have met her, but I think the world would be a...calmer place if I had never heard her name.” 

“You know Frank, then,” says the man, know, in the present tense. She doesn’t react, just keeps looking at the tulips as a petal breaks and falls to the ground, still vibrant enough to be a shade of lipstick. 

“My name’s Karen,” she eventually says, offering her hand to shake. He takes it. 

“Curtis Hoyle, it’s a pleasure.” 

“Curtis,” she nods, and it’s like that itch from earlier, only now it’s based on the inside of her skull until she remembers—much quicker, “the white wire.” 

He looks at her mildly shocked, brows furrowed for a moment before he’s able to scratch his own itch. 

“Karen Page, with the paper. You almost got blown up last November.” 

She purses her lips, “It seems so did you.” 

He laughs good naturedly and she relaxes, Curtis seems easy going, and there really aren’t enough people like that in her life now, it feels refreshing. 

“I have to say, I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here,” he says. The look he gives her is still kind, but also questioning and speculative, although what he’s speculating she cannot guess. 

“Me neither.” 

“I didn’t even want to come, really,” he continues, “but I’ve done a lot of things in life that I didn’t want to do, so I sucked it up. I figured, I’m a piss poor replacement for the guy that should be here, but I’m still better than no one.”

Suddenly Karen grew more uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation. She doesn’t talk about Frank with anyone but Frank, she doesn’t have the words or the emotional preparation to answer any of the potential questions Curis might throw her way. 

“So why are you here, Miss Page?”

The question isn’t accusatory, but it isn’t entirely genuine either, probing, maybe. The problem is that Karen doesn’t really have an answer. There’s a sense of obligation, but also an emotional need, and no singular explanation. 

“It’s always nice getting flowers,” she says, and she knows it’s a non-answer, but she hasn’t been a journalist this long without learning how to evade unwanted conversation points. “Even in death I think maybe I’d like someone to buy me flowers.” She shrugs, “I thought maybe Maria would want the same.”

“So it doesn’t have anything to do with Frank Castle?” Curtis fires back, and he must be used to asking hard questions because he pushes aside her deflection without care. 

She doesn’t know Curtis, if he’s trustworthy, if he’s kind, but she breathes, “Of course it does,” without much thought of the consequences. Something about the man makes her want to open up. 

They stand there for another few moments, in acknowledgment, in appreciation, or maybe just in silence. 

“Were you planning on visiting the kids too?”

She doesn’t want to, there’s a part of her that’s disgusted with herself for feeling that way, but she thinks she’s had enough tragedy for one day. 

She follows Curtis to the twin headstones anyway, that same mix of obligation and curious desire forcing her feet forward. 

For the next ten minutes they do not speak.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd love to hear what you think!


End file.
